“D—­n the vagabonds!” said he, in so clear a tone that I positively started at the change, “D—­n the vagabonds! they not only knocked in the roof of my mouth, but took the trouble to cut off at least seven-eighths of my tongue.  There isn’t Bonfanti’s equal, however, in America, for really good articles of this description.  I can recommend you to him with confidence,” [here the General bowed,] “and assure you that I have the greatest pleasure in so doing.”

I acknowledged his kindness in my best manner, and took leave of him at once, with a perfect understanding of the true state of affairs — with a full comprehension of the mystery which had troubled me so long.  It was evident.  It was a clear case.  Brevet Brigadier General John A. B. C. Smith was the man —–­ was the man that was used up.

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THE BUSINESS MAN

Method is the soul of business. —­ OLD SAYING.

I AM a business man.  I am a methodical man.  Method is the thing, after all.  But there are no people I more heartily despise than your eccentric fools who prate about method without understanding it; attending strictly to its letter, and violating its spirit.  These fellows are always doing the most out-of-the-way things in what they call an orderly manner.  Now here, I conceive, is a positive paradox.  True method appertains to the ordinary and the obvious alone, and cannot be applied to the outre.  What definite idea can a body attach to such expressions as “methodical Jack o’ Dandy,” or “a systematical Will o’ the Wisp”?

My notions upon this head might not have been so clear as they are, but for a fortunate accident which happened to me when I was a very little boy.  A good-hearted old Irish nurse (whom I shall not forget in my will) took me up one day by the heels, when I was making more noise than was necessary, and swinging me round two or knocked my head into a cocked hat against the bedpost.  This, I say, decided my fate, and made my fortune.  A bump arose at once on my sinciput, and turned out to be as pretty an organ of order as one shall see on a summer’s day.  Hence that positive appetite for system and regularity which has made me the distinguished man of business that I am.

If there is any thing on earth I hate, it is a genius.  Your geniuses are all arrant asses —­ the greater the genius the greater the ass —­ and to this rule there is no exception whatever.  Especially, you cannot make a man of business out of a genius, any more than money out of a Jew, or the best nutmegs out of pine-knots.  The creatures are always going off at a tangent into some fantastic employment, or ridiculous speculation, entirely at variance with the “fitness of things,” and having no business whatever to be considered as a business at all.  Thus you may tell these characters immediately by the nature of their occupations.